Joining Club 30

Thanks to all my friends, my sister, and Corey who surprised me with a birthday picnic this past weekend. I had a great time and it was such a beautiful day....I couldn't have planned a more perfect birthday. Here's a couple photos from the day.

Photo credits: Quavando (Vu) Nguyen

How to catch a Samoan Bus

We've been back in Portland for awhile now, but I can't get out of my head the experience of riding a Samoan bus to our Fale in Lalomanu. I knew we were in trouble when the brochure claimed "Samoan buses come in a variety of colours!" Nothing about timeliness, comfort or style. Oh well...
So here's a time-line of how it went on March 14th on our way across 'Upolu:

9:00 AM - Check bus schedule at our hotel - buses to Lalomanu depart the Fish Market in Apia at 10:30, 11:00, and 11:30 - awesome. Catch taxi to the craft market/fish market for the morning.

10:00 AM - Enjoy a fine lunch of fried chicken at the craft market.

10:40 AM - A little bored, head over to catch the 11:00 bus to Lalomanu - beach here we come!

10:45 AM - Ask the teenage "bus driver's assistant" what time we're leaving. 11? No, 11:15? No. Noon, he says. Try to keep wife from kicking the kid.

11:00 AM - Decide he's actually right. Send Janwyn back into the market to pick up a few other crafts. Notice an amazing amount of people boarding the bus. Maybe we're leaving early?

11:20 AM - Board bus. Wait.

11:40 AM - Wait. More people board the bus.

12 noon - Waiting, folks sitting in laps as well as standing. Notice that I'm the only "White" person on the bus and my wife is the only Asian. Huh.

12:15 PM - We pull out of the bus corral! Yay, we're on our way!

12:20 PM - Notice we're pulling into the vegetable market 3 blocks away. What?

12:30 PM - We spin through, apparently, the bus driver didn't see anyone he recognized, so we're BACK to the Bus corral. We've been on the bus over an hour and have gone in a giant circle. But at least we have seats.

12:40 PM - FINALLY leave the bus corral FOR REAL this time. We're headed East out of Town.

12:45 PM - Uh oh, spoke to soon. We stop for gas and EVERYONE gets off the bus! This is like doing your grocery shopping at Super America. We're we not just at the Market? What gives? Janwyn and I are beside ourselves.

12:46 PM - Notice a gal selling ice cream outside the store (mmmmm, ice cream). Decide to sign up for a cone for 4 Tala (that's $1.30 to you Americans). This is going to be awesome!

12:47 PM - Watch the bus creep ahead with my wife frantically waving on-board. All the sudden ice cream doesn't sound so good. Jump back on the bus.

12:50 PM - JUST KIDDING! The bus driver wanted to make sure the gas works, so pulled ahead 10 feet. WE'RE STILL WAITING!

1:15 PM - Everybody back on the bus. Fun Times in 100% humidity. We're on the road again.

1:30 PM - We're rolling now! Yee-haw!

2:00 PM - Hope the transmission holds out as we creep up the hill. 10 kms per hour. Feel that breeze!

2:30 PM - We start dropping folks off. At the end of their driveways.

2:32 PM - Another stop.

2:33 PM - 5 meters down the road, another stop.

2:34 PM - 10 meters down the road, another stop. It occurs to me a fantastic idea hasn't hit Samoans yet - a bus stop!

2:35 PM, 2:37 PM, 2:41 PM, and on and on until 3:30 - you get the idea. I should have ridden a turtle across the island.

3:45 PM - We see the sign saying we're in Lalomanu! Huzzah! We keep an eye out for Litia Sini, and our Fales.

3:50 PM - Take a turn off the road towards Lalomanu school. Are we on a side trip?

3:55 PM - We c-r-e-e-p past a Saturday afternoon Rugby game. Everyone leans out the window to watch.

4:00 PM - Pull a U-Turn at the end of the road. I don't recall anyone getting off the bus on this side trip...

4:05 PM - We STOP, engines off, as EVERYONE watches the Rugby game intently. Wow, we're never going to get there!

4:08 PM - We on the move - Oh wait, the bus driver just realized he could sit in the shade if he pulled ahead 10 feet - we're still watching the game.

4:15 PM - On the move again. Tired, sweaty, and ready to get off the bus.

4:25 PM - Yell out as we pass Litia Sini - That's our resort, jump off, pay 16 Tala for the pleasure, and get set to enjoy the fantastic views of the surf.

Total Distance: 35 kms --- Travel Time: 4 hours, 5 minutes.

Half Dome

Here is my favorite picture of Half Dome.

Yosemite

Before making our way back up to Portland, we had a chance to visit Yosemite National Park. We only had a day to see the sights, so we planned to do the typical tourist visit. When we got there, it was a bit colder than both of us anticipated. Of course coming from the southern hemisphere and Bay Area where it was pleasantly warm did not prepare us for the cold and snow of the mountains. But we had a wonderful day; please enjoy some photos I took while I was there!

5 things we're surprised by, now that we're back in the States:

So, you've decided to reacclimate to American society! Good for you!

Though it looks largely like you might remember, there are a few key changes. Here are some of the things that really struck Janwyn and I as we've travelled around California this past two weeks:

1. Cars here are ... wait for it ... GIGANTIC!

We had the thought as soon as we got on the highway in San Fran. Wow, you get like, 3.5 kilometers to the litre in that thing or what? 95% of cars in NZ were the size of our Nissan Sunny or smaller - the other 5% were work vehicles. Very remarkable.

2. Who the heck is Octomom?

I spent 5 months looking at tabloids where I had no idea who was on the cover, only to come back and be confronted with this phenomenon. Man, I find it really challenging to see any redeeming value here. Probably because there really is none.

3. Taxes are too high - getting higher and tipping is a really odd tradition.

(At the risk of sounding like Mr. Pink, "It's not my fault their employers don't pay them enough, it's a screwed up system, I just choose not to play ball.") In New Zealand, there is NO tipping (though the cafe culture is changing that, thanks Starbucks, and the price you see is the price you pay, everywhere. WHERE IS ALL THIS $$$ GOING??? And while we're on it,

3A. Thanks for taking care of the economy while we were away ... appreciate it ...

4. When did everyone pick up an iPhone?

I remember the first friend of mine who jumped on an iPhone last summer, but when did everyone find the time to plunk down $300 on a touch screen phone. I admit, I'm enthralled as much as the next person with what it can do, and it's a matter of time before I join the crowd. But the pace of price of "handheld items" has gone from: $2 bottle of pop to $4.50 cup of Starbucks to $100 cell phone to $300 iPhone. I'm confused, isn't there a recession going on?

And finally:

5. I wouldn't trade the Southern Alps views for extra pavement, but the US Interstate system is a thing of beauty!

See my coming article on getting to Lalomanu from Apia in Samoa and you'll truly appreciate the distance we've come in testing out road infrastructures! Sounds silly, but being able to drive from Fresno to LA in 5 hours is an amazing feat after that.

Highlights from Samoa

Our vacation from the vacation: March 8th - 17th.

• We visited 2 islands in Western Samoa: Savaii and Upolu.
• Our accommodation consisted of beach huts, called fales, over the water or beachside.
• We swam and snorkeled in the warm turquoise waters.
• We rented a car (with another couple we met along the way) and drove around Savaii and saw how the locals live, explored the lava fields, and saw the blow holes at high tide.
  
• Spent a lot of hours in the hammock, reading and enjoying the beautiful scenery.
• It took a 4 hour bus ride, where we were crammed in with the locals (typically 4 people per bus bench) to the south side of Upolo where we enjoyed 2 wonderful days on a sand beach.

So long to New Zealand

Well our final day has arrived. We're mixed emotions of course, sad to leave our new friends and fantastic country, unsure about how our week in remote Samoa will fare, and excited to see our family and friends again.

So here's a smattering of last weeks pictures in Auckland and Northland as well as some final thoughts on our trip:

Here's Janwyn excited to be on Rawawa Beach on the East side of Cape Reinga, the northernmost point on the North Island.


Heading home on our overnight cruise. We had a fantastic time in the Bay of Islands snorkeling, kayaking, fishing, and drinking Tui Beer.


While staying with Giselle in Auckland, we helped Graham with his unveiling of Marama Organic Meats to the customers of Farro Fresh Foods. Here we are in front of Graham's new sign honoring the occasion.

And here are our two time hosts themselves, Graham, proud South Otago Farmer, and Giselle, who's home we graciously visited in lovely Parnell, Auckland.

Here I am, offering some freshly grilled organic meat. There were plenty of takers during the two weekends we visited Farro Fresh.

And with that, the top five things we're looking forward to back in The States:

5. Spoons that are conveniently mouth size!
4. Finding a job, making our new home, and creating a new garden
3. Having a coffee from Muddy Waters on Belmont in Portland
2. Screens on windows
1. Seeing Yin.

Hope to see everyone when we return from Samoa!

Trusty's Sold!

Well it took about a week - including 3 fruitless days in the dismal Auckland Backpackers Car Market - but Trusty has found a new owner. It's destined for a high-mileage life of toting Caden, a Buzz Lightyear carrying precocious four-year-old we met yesterday, back and forth to pre-school. The best part is we'll keep the car through Friday 6 March so we can take it on our trip to Northland this weekend. First stop there: an overnight cruise on the Bay of Islands aboard the Rock: Check it out here: http://www.rocktheboat.co.nz/.

Adventure Activities

Earlier this month Corey and I journeyed to Rotorua, a city known for adventure activities. As many of you know we have have had bungy jumping and sky diving experiences before, so we were looking for something different, something uniquely New Zealand. In the morning we were up early to join the fine folks at RaftAbout who run both white water rafting and sledging trips down the Kaituna River. Sledging is where you are actually IN the water, kept afloat by a boogie-board-like contraption with handles. With a helmet and fins, you manuever your way down the river punching through the rapids as they swallow you....it was fantastic! Below are some pictures from our sledging experience.

After sledging we continued the adrenaline rush with Zorbing. Diving head first into a rubber sphere padded with air, they throw in a bucket of water in with you and then and launch you tumbling down the hill. Think washing machine cycle and rollercoaster put together.

It was great fun! Ask us later and we'll have to tell you more stories.

Here's Janwyn coming down a rapid:

Corey and Janwyn in the Kaituna River:

Corey and Janwyn trying to "surf" the rapid side-by-side:

Corey doing his best against the current to stand on his sledge board:

Video from on top of the Pinnacles!

Warning! It was apparently quite windy when I shot this, but you can't argue with the view!

Trusty is up for sale!

Here's a picture of the nicely cleaned up "Trusty" the Nissan Sunny. We cleaned, washed, and waxed her up yesterday. And today Corey took her down to the Backpacker Car Market in downtown Auckland in hopes that we'll get a decent return on her. The folks at the market said she should sell in 3 days...let's hope so!

Tongariro Crossing

Hello all!
Attached are some pictures of us on the Tongariro Crossing, which is regarded as one of the best one-day hikes in New Zealand. We actually completed this hike a couple weeks ago after our 5-day canoe journey down the Whanganui River (pictures still to come). We actually passed on hiking the crossing when we were here during our first trip to New Zealand (March 2008); mostly because we felt we weren't equipped with the right equipment, shoes, etc. But this time we had hiking boots, which I was glad for.

To make the 19km crossing you have to arrange transport to the beginning of the track and from the end. Hundreds of people do the crossing everyday and are rewarded with stunning views of Mount Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe, and Tongariro. The 3 volcanoes make up the Tongariro National Park, which has been named a World Heritage Site.

The only thing that was sort of a turn off about the crossing is the number of people doing it. You are constantly passing people, and people are passing you. We constantly had to pull over for the last 2-3 hours of the hike when my knee started giving me trouble again. Unfortunately the last part of the track is well laid with stairs...of which I could only step down one at a time. Corey was very patient with me and I had to take it slow in order to get down the mountain...but I made it! Again, we were amazed at what people wore on this hike. The elevation was pretty high (don't ask me how high...that's a question for Corey) and at the top we were pretty exposed to some strong winds. I was glad for my rain jacket to shield me from the brutal wind and my beanie. But we saw peoplewalking in slip on canvas shoes (Vans) and jeans!

Anyways, enjoy the slideshow below or click here.


P.S. gotta go pick up Corey now...he's probably done surfing.

Chook Plucking!

Lyn, our WWOOF host at Gardenstone was pleased to hear we were willing to give plucking a try: "I need three plucked and the heck if I'm doing it myself!" she said. Apparently some wwoofers are squeamish about plucking 3000 or so feathers off of a freshly killed, still warm, chicken carcass. Who knew?

Watch the slideshow below or click here.

Pictures from Dannevirke

Just a few pictures of our time in Dannevirke. We shared a cookies and cream cheesecake at Yummy Mummy's Cheesecakes. It was okay. And we're not sure if this dog had a name. But he was sure starved of some loving attention!

Gardenstone

We are WWOOFing at Gardenstone, a 180 acre farm in Dannevirke on the North Island this week. It's such a lovely place to be. Most of the land is devoted to a dairy farm with about 250 cows. A tanker truck comes each day to haul away the milk to be processed into milk powder, cheese, and other milk products.

A B&B house and cottage, gardens, and an event hall (designed for weddings and other outdoor events) takes up about 10 acres. This area is working to keep the farm self-sustainable. The garden is huge with every vegetable that you can think of. Yesterday I was weeding around the corn, asparagus, chives, and strawberries. I cut back the grape vines and Corey dug up the broccoli plants. Next to the garden is the chook (or chicken) house/pen. We have fresh eggs everyday and tomorrow we are killing and plucking 3 roosters (Mike is doing the killing, Lyn, Corey, and I are doing the plucking). And next to the chook house is the pig pens. The day we arrived at Gardenstone, Lyn had one of the pigs slaughtered and was working all day to butcher the meat. So we've been having fresh pork and bacon! And next to the pigs are the donkeys. Not sure how they come into play with the self-sustainability, but they are fun to watch!

The event area is beautiful! A large wooden covered stage area was decked out for a wedding that took place the day before we arrived. The place is wonderfully landscaped with fruit trees everywhere. It brought back memories of my family's old Fremont house when we picked plums right from the tree to eat! There is even a labyrinth grass area that is fun to work your mind at. And there is even a bush walk that you can explore! It's amazing and just a magical place.

Harvest Hawke's Bay

Greetings to all from The Hawke's Bay, New Zealand Wine Country!

This weekend Janwyn and I drove up from Paekakariki to Napier, New Zealand's Art Deco city, to take part in Harvest Hawke's Bay wine tours. For more info check out this link:

http://www.harvesthawkesbay.co.nz/

Saturday was a hot one in Hawke's Bay, almost topping 40 degrees. We toured around 5 wineries, many of which featured live music and lots of shade. To end the day we stopped off at The Filter Room, a cider house and micro brewery. And dispite our taste buds being warn out on wine, we enjoyed all of the beer/cider tasters we tried.

Next we're headed South a bit back to Dannivirke, where we'll stay at Gardenstone on our fourth WWOOF.

Pictures at long last: Christchurch to Kaikoura

Updates

Some thoughts and observations for the day...

• I love living by the beach.
• 20 minute naps are heavenly.
• I think I could live with eating less meat.
• I can't wait for Corey to get his haircut on Thursday.
• Oil changes are expensive here -- $100 NZ.
• Congrats to our friend Mercedes who just landed a new job.
• Congrats to Jenn and Kevin on their new adventures.
• I miss Yin way too much.
• I'm currently reading Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
• It's peaceful here in Paekakariki.
• I was recently introduced to the book, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. And it is an eye-opening story. View the web gallery here.
• I love soup....except pumpkin or kumara soup...or any variation of pumpkin and kumara soup.
• I am sorry I won't be there for my brother's and Xong's hmong wedding celebration on Feb 21st.
• Looking forward to homemade pizzas tonight!
  

WWOOF-ing - North Island style

Wow, too much time has passed since we last posted, and I bet a lot of people would like to see some pictures, huh?  

Well, they're in the works, but I thought I'd at least continue to the posting thread since it has been so long.  We were "out in the bush" as they say for 5 days last week completing one of the nine great walks of New Zealand, but in this case we didn't walk.  It was on the Whanganui Journey, a 3-5 day canoe paddle down the second longest river in New Zealand.  The paddling and weather was mostly good, and we stayed two nights at Tieke Kainga, a Maori compound featuring a Maori Marae, their meeting house.  Three Maori women were in residence while we were there and we found them very friendly and interesting to talk to.

Immediately after that, we went on the advertised "best one-day walk in New Zealand" the Tongariro Crossing in the middle of the North Island.  We were initially hesitant to do it, as it tends to be crowded and kinda "busload-touristy" but we were glad to find the scenery largely outweighed the negatives of the crowd and we had a great time.

And now, now were staying on our third WWOOF, in a village near Wellington called Paekakariki with Marianne and Gabriel, who are ex-Californians six years removed, and their black lab, the very friendly Brinco.  We've been having a great time exchanging American ideals from afar and learning about the outsiders view of New Zealand.  In short, a great time to have by all.

Well, that should be about enough out of me for now.  Many stories to catch up on, but that'll have to be next time!

And I see we went over 1000 hits on our counter!  WOW!  Amazing to be able to connect with everyone in this way.  How exciting!

Consider me lucky

So in Corey's record of the past week's events, he forgot to mention that I lost my ipod. Yes...the one that I bought brand new from one of those Best Buy kiosks in the LAX airport, because I originally forgot my first ipod with all my belongs in Fremont. We were here at the internet cafe checking email and charging the ipods. And when we left, I must have forgotten to pick up my ipod. Unfortunately I didn't realize that I had left it or where I left it until at least a couple hours later. By then, I thought there'd be no chance of getting it back. In a cafe full of gamers, who wouldn't take the chance to pick up a free ipod? But we went back to the cafe anyways, and in some miracle, the guy working the counter had said someone had found it but didn't want to leave it in the Cyber Cafe's lost and found bin. He had left his name and number and when I called him he told me he had taken it to the police station. Wow, was I super lucky to have such an honest person find my ipod. So I went to the police station and the officer who helped me just had a smirk on his face the whole time. The kind that said you spoiled lucky kid. I get it. I was lucky. And ever so grateful that such a considerate and kind person was honest enough to turn it in.

But apparently my luck hadn't run out (thankfully)....
Monday there was no work, so as I think Corey mentioned we took off to see more of the Marlborough Sounds....Okiwi Bay and French Pass. At French Pass we decided to take a 15 minute hike down to the beach and enjoy the afternoon reading Time magazine's account of the upcoming challenges for the new president. But just as we were getting to the bottom, seriously we were 10 steps from the sand, I slipped on the steep decent. And instead of waiting for Corey to give me a hand of support, I decided to step backwards (don't ask me why) down this slippery slope. My foot caught a loose rock and I went tumbling. Like a full 360 degrees or more of a turn and landed at the bottom hitting my head against a tree. Corey was above and I can only imagine the whole thing going in slow motion over and over in his head. I AM OKAY MOM. I was lucky. I ended up with a couple bruises and scratches all over my body, a pretty sore big toe on my right foot, and a hole in my dress. I was a little shook up, but everything was okay. This morning I was a little sore and stiff, but I'm grateful I'm moving alright.

Tomorrow we are planning to wake up at 5:30 AM to watch the coverage on the inauguration and then a full day of leaf thinning in the fields.

Some things from this past week...

WEDNESDAY - We continued our work in the vineyards with a loooooong day. I'm really glad my nice wife convinced me to bring along my full brim "Seattle Sombrero" hat as the sun was beating down. I can tell clearly due to the amazing sun fading effects on my Navy "I'm very excited to be here" shirt (now my work shirt).

THURSDAY - Another hot one in the vineyard but we were saved by completing our work by lunchtime when we went for a swim in the nearby river. Ah, that was rewarding!

FRIDAY - Hmmmm. no work in the vineyard. John, our boss, was kind enough to give us a few hours work in cleaning the company work vans. Janwyn was so excited to do some real vacuuming, that we unfortunately burned through the motor in the vacuum! (vacuuming three work vans in the 35 degree weather will do that, I suppose.)
Later that night, we met up with new Californian friends Diana and Austin, who ended up in New Zealand via sailing from Baja Mexico. (Wow). Later, we ran into other fast friends from the fields, Loreto and Juan from Chile. We indulged in a few Speights and ended up talking until two in the morning. For the record, Corey's Speight's limit should be around 6-7.

SATURDAY - We took a leisurely day driving down to Kaikoura. We stayed at Bad Jelly Backpackers. Bad Jelly is a cartoon witch. Who knew?

SUNDAY - Got ourselves up early to catch the 7:15 Whalewatch Boat out of Kaikoura. We were successful in seeing three Sperm Whales as they surfaced for air. Corey was successful in keeping his breakfast down despite the four foot swells. Janwyn was successful in a few very nice pictures of whale tails.

MONDAY - No work again, but that's OK. We didn't come to New Zealand to walk rows of vines anyway. We're going to take a picnic lunch and head to Okiwi Bay and French Pass to watch the currents sweep through. It's a very nice day for it, at around 24 degrees, partly sunny!

First day in the Vineyard

Today we begun a new form of accommodation/holiday as we became seasonal workers in the Marlborough Wine Industry!

I'm now acutely aware why "Migrant Worker" is not a popular program selection for college sophomores.

Don't get me wrong, it's actually not bad work ... it's just working with the boredom that gets to you!

Our job today was to walk along the rows of grapes (Cabernet Savignon, since you asked) and trim off any stray branches. This allows the vines to concentrate on those bundles of grapes it has and bring them to full fruit. We were mercifully allowed to bring our iPods with for entertainment.

Janwyn personally seemed to take to the task very well, enjoying the aspects of gardening and the luck of having a good weather day.

We'll do this for at least the next four days, before heading back to Kaikoura and attempting to do the Whale Watch again. Should be a experience full of interesting tales!

Confirmed to Samoa!

Yesterday on our way back from Golden Bay to Blenheim we stopped off in Nelson (Yes, you should all know where these are, there will be a quiz later). There we found an Air New Zealand travel agency and stopped in to check on our itinerary. We confirmed our layover on our return in Samoa

(Oh my gosh, as I'm writing I was just taken off my train of thought ... the asian guy across from me at the Internet cafe [NOT Asian-American, mind you] has a shirt on that proudly claims "Barrack Obama is my Homeboy." Well, that sight aught to distract anyone.)

Anyways, we confirmed out return layover for a week in March in Samoa. So with any luck we'll be hanging out at this place, enjoying the tropical breezes for a while.

Back in Picton

We just returned to Picton today. We hiked the Queen Charlotte Track for the past 2 days, but yesterday my right knee decided it had had enough walking and I started to feel a sharp pain on the outside tendon, especially on the descents. After 2 eight hour days of hiking with some pretty strenuous climbs and sore feet, it's easy to see why. So instead of waking up early this morning and starting another 7-8 hike out, we took it easy and rented a double sit-on-top kayak and explored the Kenepuru Sound. It was GREAT to get out on the aqua blue water (except for the wet butts -- we didn't realize sit-on-tops have holes in the seats to "drain water"). We even saw a bunch of sting rays, which were pretty neat. For those of you who know how much I enjoy kayaking, this was definitely preferable to hiking another 24kms. We caught a boat ride back to Picton after Corey check-mated me in a game of chess. Those darn sneaky rooks!

Enjoying another beautiful sunny day in Picton before we continue our journey. Right now we are scheduled to catch the ferry to the North Island on the 22nd.

BTW, if you ever want to hike the QC Track....you have the option to do it in 3-5 days. Our suggestion is at least 4 days. Don't over extend yourself since it's quite a hilly track and take advantage of the nice accomodation places along the way. I would've traded a foot massage/pedicure for either of the camping nights that we opted for.

pictures from the West Coast

Here are some pictures from our travels on the west coast. See the slide show below, or click here.

Where are we again?

Hi all, we were lucky enough to find a Internet Cafe open in tiny Blenheim on a Sunday!

So, to answer my own question, above we're in Blenheim in Marlborough, on the North end of the South Island. (Blenheim is pronounced 'Blen-um' to rhyme with 'Denim' not 'Mannheim' as I initially thought.) Marlborough is one of the premier New Zealand wine areas, specializing in Savignoin Blanc and Pinot Noir. We came though this area briefly on our first trip to NZ, but we're planning on staying much longer this time!

Since Christmas, all the Kiwi's have been on Holiday, thus making accommodation quite tight! Their "Holiday" ends tomorrow, January 5, so that should loosen up, but we'll have to see if that happens. Currently "home" is our Hampton tent, stationed at White's Bay, 16 kms SE of Picton. It's fine for now, but having a break from tenting it will soon be in order.

Getting out of the tent will be critical when considering our next adventure, tramping the Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sounds. There we'll be camping each night. We're working out what timing would work out best for us, but we may be out there as early as tomorrow. It's a 4-day, 3-night tramp and is the one track where pack transfer occurs - you can have your pack transferred via water taxi to your next night's stay, what a relief!

From there, we're hoping to do another wwoof, but they seem busy as well. Hopefully we'll be able to work a time out with somebody.

And then, we have our tickets for the ferry to the North Island purchased - January 22 - which might move back if we find something more interesting down here.